A short and sombre one this week, siblings, as we remember Greg Kingston, late of Suffolk Life and Curtis Banks, who has died in an accident aged a far too young 47.

Many of you will have crossed paths with Greg during his great career, and having read the many tributes over the last few days, I think most of you share the same opinion of him that we have and will always have.

Greg had strong game in photography, and biking, and craft beer, and was great fun to be around in either a work or a social setting and these are all good things. But I think my favourite thing about him was his ability to be absolutely serious and focused on what he was doing for work, while at the same time not taking it too seriously at all. That twinkle in the eye is everything, and Greg absolutely had it in spades.

I remember him taking two things absolutely seriously though – looking after his colleagues ferociously during the inevitable stresses of changing corporate life, and fighting the pension scammers for whom he had some very choice names that would absolutely get caught in your profanity filters if I repeated them here.

Gone far too soon and in cruel circumstances. Everyone at the lang cat – and round the industry, I’m sure – raises a glass to you Greg. Rest in power.

WE’LL JUST DO THE LINKS

• I think Greg would approve of some kind of normality, and there is plenty going on, so let’s mention big changes afoot at Aegon, which has heard of this vertical integration malarkey and would quite like a bit of it, please. Congratulations to my old boss Mark Till who now ascends to sit on the right hand of *insert deity here*, irrespective of whether said deity wants her hand sat on or not.
• New D2C platform klaxon! Here’s Vinco, come to see off HL, Interactive Investor, Fidelity and all the rest with a short favoured buy list of funds. Good luck to all involved – you have to have a soft spot for things that launch at the hardest possible time.
• News from the lang cat – we launched a nice paper last week on potential disruption in the CIP space. Over 1,000 of you have read it so far, but we’ve still got loads round the back, so don’t be shy and come read it here. Thanks to Intelliflo for footing the bill.
• We’ve also launched a brand new customisable pricing engine thingy for Platform Analyser – if you’d like to come and find out about it we’re doing a live-in-living-colour demo tomorrow at 11am here.
• And if you’re interested in ESG then please come along to HomeGames at 12.30pm today, when our own Steve Nelson will overcome his tech phobias to rerun the previously aborted session with Jeannie Boyle of EQ Investors and Neville White of EdenTree. It’ll be good, and 100% glitch-free, probably. Watch live here or later on here.
• And your music choice this week honours Greg’s fondness for Blondie. Have a bit of Maria as you raise your glass.

I’m off next week, so Mike will be your supply teacher. No acting up, now.

Mark